I had a meeting yesterday with two men who just might have the toughest jobs in Delaware County.

Meet Gregory Thornton and Marc Wooley.

Dr. Thornton is the superintendent of the Chester Upland School District. Wooley is the head of the state Empowerment Board that actually runs the perenially troubled district.

To give you an idea of what they’re up against, Thornton arrived here to succeed Dr. Gloria Grantham. He didn’t have to come far. Thornton was previously the chief academic officer of the equally troubled Philadelphia School District.

Chester Upland has about 4,000 students in seven schools. Those numbers are dwarfed by the situation in the Philadelphia School District, which has hundreds of schools and a staggering amount of students. Many of those schools and students face problems every bit as serious or even more so than the situation in Chester.

Thornton arrived in Chester, took one look around, and shook his head. He says it’s easily the biggest challenge he’s faced in his career.

How bad were things? Thornton says that at one point last year a decision actually was made not to teach math in the district schools, instead to focus on literacy. You can’t make this kind of stuff up.

There are a lot of good things going on in the city of Chester. The city is experiencing something of a turnaround. But it will all be for naught if those gains are not shared by the school district.

That is where Thornton and Wooley come in.

Wooley came into power when the state Department of Education, in a fairly controversial move, decided that the former Board of Control, which was tasked with putting the ailing district on the path to fiscal sanity, has accomplished its mission.

They promptly blew up that board and set up the Empowerment Board, installing Wooley as its leader.

There are those who say that nothing happens in the Chester Upland School District that is not rooted in politics. For decades the school system was the favored patronage mill of the Republican Party.

That’s true. The Board of Control was tied to the former Republican state administration. The Empowerment Board is tied to Democratic Gov. Ed Rendell.
Wooley and Thornton have set out to change the way things are done in Chester Upland. Again. Specifially, they want to change the perception of the district, and to get results.

They face some daunting odds.

First, and maybe foremost, there is the continuing exodus of students to charter schools. Right now $31 million of their annual budget goes to the local charters. That’s a big chunk of change.

Now they’re about to butt heads with both city and county leaders over an earned income tax.

They want to get their hands on what they believe is the school district’s fair share of the levy exacted by the city.

But the elected school board, yes there still is one, voted 9-1 to reject their request. The Empowerment Board says it plans to go ahead and ask voters whether they will back transferring a portion, actually 0.5 percent, of the city’s 2.35 percent earned income tax to the school district.

Whether or not they have the power to do that could wind up in court.
Where everything with this district seems to end up.

Thornton and Wooley are bound and determined to make changes in the district. They point to the recent new contract for the district’s teachers as proof they aim to change the way things are done in Chester Upland.

They have opposed, or at least questioned, a proposal for a movie studio in Chester Township because the developer wants the district to forego tax revenues, which would be used to build the facility.

Wooley makes it clear. He inspects these things carefully, and wants to know about every contract, and every dollar, and who is getting what, and making sure the school district gets its fair share.

They talk plainly about how far behind the district is, and their desire to invest in kids.

Too often, too much is made of the dollars and cents, and the kids are forgotten.
Thornton and Wooley want to do both. They want to be fiscally prudent while moving the district and its families ahead. Or at least bring them up to the levels of other districts in the county.

Makes sense to me. Cents, too.